Showdown With Iran?
Is a U.S.-Iran war on the horizon? President Obama has wasted a year trying to coax Iran to the negotiating table to discuss its nuclear program. Every overture he has made to Ahmadinejad has ultimately been rejected, but only after Iran exploited the potential for negotiations to buy more time to continue its nuclear work. The clock continues to tick, and U.S. troops in the Middle East, Israel and friendly Arab states all face a growing threat.
This weekend a story leaked that the Obama Administration is now accelerating the deployment of additional military assets into the Persian Gulf to try to counter possible Iranian threats and missile attacks. (Many of these plans started under President Bush.) Aegis cruisers are being stationed off the Iranian coast. U.S. anti-missile systems are being deployed in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait. There is also a rush to upgrade defenses for oil terminals in Saudi Arabia and a plan to triple the size of a 10,000-man “protection force” in that country.
Is all of this a sign that the administration has given up on stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons and is now simply going to try to contain Iran? Is it to reassure shaky U.S. allies that fear Iran will dominate the region once it is clear the mullahs have a nuclear capability? And why the leaks to major newspapers now? Some cynics might suggest all of this is nothing more than the White House trying to convince the public that Obama is tough enough to be commander-in-chief.
Whatever the explanation, Obama’s policies up to now have failed to stop Iran and have cost the U.S. valuable time in dealing with a growing threat to our strategic interests.
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